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STORY ABOUT A WEDDING
Papers full of domestic scan
dals. Statisticians pouring forth
awful figures about the increase
of divorce. Theorists gloomily
announcing the downfall of the
American home. Children with
from two to four sets of parents.
Plenty of such things. But let's
tell a story that's different.
Fifty years ago, a young fel
low named Eph Hastings mar
ried a comely girl in the little
town of Keokuk, la. Of $500,000
pearl necklace, tapestries, silver
ware,, automobiles, banknotes and
things like that they hadn't much,
but they had courage and each
other's hearts, and you may be
sure that there's not much "wa
ter" in that sort of stock when
love's merger is successfully pro
moted. Well, Eph, and his young wife
turned their backs on Keokuk so
ciety, and, with their little all of
worldly goods, joined a mule
train to cross the great plains -to
the land where the setting sun
paints glory on land and sea and
in its rising from behind majes
tic mountains makes praise of
God spring from the heart of
man.
Then, for weeks and weeks the
train crept across prairie and des
ert, through the cold shadows of
valleys that cleft the moutains,
across streams too deep to wade.
Water was scarce very often, too.
Food sometimes ran low. And at
night the wolves howled, while
camp fires on distant hills made
the women and children crowd
close to the men who sat with
loaded guns on their knees. Indians-butchered
men, women and
children of a train that was fol
lowing them. Two days later
came news that Indians had
knifed, scalped, horribly tortured
to the last human being a big
train that was ahead of them.
One evening, Buffalo Jim. no
torious as the most bloodthirsty
chief of all Indians, visited their
camp. All the people of the train
prayed that njght and Eph sat
wifh one arm aroupd his bride
and the other around his rifle, for
Buffalo Jim meant horrible death.
But something pleased Jiip and
there was np massacre and so,
through more hardships and ter
rors the train wept creeping into
the west, and it vas altogether
such a honeymoon trip for Eph'
and wife as few couples ever pass
through.
What a freak this thing named
love is! Often it seems to refuse
to live with people who have
everything. Then, again, it for
ever abides with, grows strong
and everlasting with couples who
have little, who go through hard
ships, misery, terrors and even
shame together and is, in joy and
sorrow, in pleasure and pain, in
success and defeat, up to nay,
beyond the very doors of death
the glory of glories of human life.
But we mustn't leave Eph hon
eymooning out back there in that
mule train. We're going to lift
him out of that mule train fifty
years forward, fifty years of loy
alty, struggle, triumph over the
trials of life. At San Diego, last
Christmas day, Mr. Eph Hastings
